Test Text1 BESTIES, BFFs, WHATEVER YOU Call them, who doesn't want a best friend to help you through tough times? Somebody to whom you can tell all your secrets. But what if your best friend had a lot of secrets stowed away in a lot of suitcases? Hollywood. The glitz. The glamour. Where stars are born everyday. I grew up watching the actors on "friends" and I wanted to do what they were doing. Reporter: Fresh out of high school, meli cady. Yes, that's her. A brunette then wanted it. Badly. She left her small town of bremington, washington, with little money and big dreams. There's a cycle of just spending a lot of money on acting classes. There's head shots. It's difficult. It adds up. Reporter: How quickly did you burn through what little money you brought here? Uh, probably six months. Reporter: And you were lonely? I was. Reporter: Forget ross and rachel, meli need real friends. Someone in her acting class introduced her to this girl, lisette lee, who seemed to have it all together. So, what did she tell you about herself? She tolme that she was the samsung heiress. Reporter: And did she appear toave the wealth and trappings of the heiress to the samsung fortune? Chef acted the part. She always seemed to have a lot of money. She had a mercedes. She drove bentleys. Reporter: She ran with the crowd befitting an heiress. She said that she went to school with paris hilton and kim kardashian. And she said that she dated leonardo DiCaprio and canning tatum. Reporter: Good taste. And that's not all. She said that she was an asian pop star. Reporter: And asian pop star? On the radio? Yeah, she said she had number one, number one songs in korea. Reporter: Why do you think the -- the heiress to the samsung fortune would be hanging out with you? She said she was looking for someone who wasn't jaded by the town. Reporter: And naive. Yes. Reporter: But that naive newcomer and the sophisticated socialite hit it off. We sort of had our own private world. We would hang out at her place and have drinks and stay up late an. She was someone that was one of the really bright spots in my life when not everything was always that great. Reporter: She did land some parts. Bit parts. My life is a wreck! Reporter: Including this under the table classy cameo. But she was far from making it and barely screening buy when she said lisette came to her with a job offer. She said, I want to hire you as my executive personal assistant. I'll pay you in cash and you'll be working for your best friend and koj gracongratulations, you won the lottery. Reporter: That jackpot job? Fly with lisette on fancy private jets, moving heavy suitcases from los angeles to a seedy hotel room in columbus, ohio. But what was in the suitcases? And why columbus, ohio? Meli didn't ask. She said, that was part of the deal. No questions. It's difficult to understand why alarm bells didn't go off. I trusted her. We had four years of very close friendship. Reporter: What did you think was in the suitcases? Probably money. She said her family was very involved in some casino business. To be honest, I knew we weren't selling girl scout cookies. Reporter: If that was bizarre, meli's other task was down right shady. Wiring money, a lot of it, $40,000 through meli's own personal bank account, all to pay for those lavish private jets. Why would she ask you to put that money in your personal checking account? That was something I was very uncomfortable about. She said, you know what? Your job is so easy, I don't know what you're complaining about. If you want, I'd be more than happy to throw a stick down sne sunset boulevard and hit some other dumb broad who would do it for half the money. Reporter: Meli was in deep. She wanted a life in the fast lane and now she had it. The money was intoxicating. But she was about to discover that she had made a deal with the devil in the city of angels. It smelled like pot on the plane. After we land d, I walked in on a conversation that she was having and she said, we need to do something about that smell. This is very dangerous and we can't act like amateurs. Reporter: Meli, that once innocent, aspiring actress from washington state, was a drug trafficker. I know it might sound hard to believe, but I didn't have that conversation with lisette that were you going to tell me that we're smuggling drugs? Reporter: So, why didn't you say those things? I was very afraid. We were drug dealers and we were dealing with other drug dealers. Reporter: Believe it or not, meli kept working. Kept going on those drug runs. Little did she know, her bff was about to land her a date with they were making these flights frequently. They always had a lot of baggage with them but they always gave a different reason why they were flying to columbus. All inconsistent if it was just an innocent flight. Reporter: June 14th, 2010. As meli and lisette flew across state lines, dea agents began preparing for their arrival. Once everyone was loaded up, our unit moved in to stop them. I looked up, I saw 30 or so dea agents. I looked to my right and there was a machine gun aimed at my face. Reporter: Wow. They brought drug dogs out. Reporter: They to the presence of narcotics. At that point, we had reason and sufficient probable cause to search the vehicles. Reporter: The jig was up. Investigators discovered 500 pounds of marijuana. That's a lot of suitcases. Over the next few months, law enforcement learned more. That all those trips, many involving meli, moved more than 7,000 pounds of marijuana, worth more than $3 million. And meli says she finally realized her fauxriend had also been playing a role the whole time. That is when things started to unravel. r: HESHE'D BEEN LYING About everything. Her age, her relationship with stars, that pop star career. Meli says so much of what lisette told her were lies. As for that samsung connection -- the company denies any relation to lisette lee. Did you feel gullible? I felt like an idiot. I mean -- I was completely duped. She lied about everything. Reporter: Everything. Everything. And I was looking at 5 to 40 years in prison. Reporter: Lisette and meli both pled guilty. Lisette is serving a six-year sentence. But meli, who cooperated, only had to serve one month, followed by a year of house arrest. Changed my life. Permanently. Drug trafficker. Convicted felon. Form er inmate. Reporter: But as we've see over and over and over, the mug shot can be the new head shot. The ankle bracelet, the newest hollywood accessory. Meli even blogged about it on her website, housearrestgirl.Com. And now it's being turned into a book and paramount pictures is making it into a movie. Maybe meli isn't so naive after all. Lisette lee has petitioned the court to shorten or vacate her sentence. In an e-mail, she said that meli knew exactly what was going on.

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

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